<p>
Only by fantasists.
Oh for Pete’s sake. This is ridiculous. Every one of them signed it. Reluctantly? Even you can’t buy that.
Yes, as I mentioned in response to Njres, above, Oliphant is pimping the latest lame DNC talking point.
I have no doubt that he wishes that. If it had happened, he would have closed up shop with no indictments at all! I wonder how the media would have handled that good news, days before a presidential election.</p>
<p>“‘Fitz’ ended up getting all of the correct answers to the questions he was investigating. And still found no underlying crime.”</p>
<p>Or he may have wisely concluded that there was an underlying crime, but that there were elements of that crime that would have been difficult to prove in open court without further compromising national security.</p>
<p>
An interesting thought, but one that doesn’t necessarily point to shennanigans at the White House. Let’s not forget that it was a leak that brought the CIA’s referral to DOJ of the alleged Plame “outing” to the press’s attention. That referral was classified. I think there’s a whole lot of dirty stuff–beyond incompetence–about the CIA in this whole mess, and I’m not sure how much of it would be allowed in open court. Dealing with the mess at CIA is probably better handled quietly behind the scenes by Porter Goss, which is why he was sent there.</p>
<p>Thank you for the link to the report. I must say that, if that’s a “friendly report” that makes our intelligence look good, I’m even more worried than I was. It comes to the conclusion (in the executive summary) that it’s now appropriate for us to trust single uncorroborated sources.</p>
<p>Driver, do you really believe that the reason this investigation was stonewalled didn’t have anything to do with keeping the truth from the American public before the Presidential election? I am curious if you support this type of deceit.</p>
<p>And so the datebook pages are flipping…when is that next election? How can we strategize with this? Any comments from the gallery here re:Ted Wells.?</p>
<p>I don’t understand how any sentient person can consider the Fitzpatrick investigation the victim of a “stonewall.” No one challenged the subpoenas, took the 5th, or claimed “executive privilege.” No one “lost” documents, no one destroyed documents. The one anomoly was Libby, and it was his own notes, freely rendered, that did him in–and Fitzgerald ended up getting the correct information from additional administration sources, despite his inaccurate testimony. There was nothing to stonewall.</p>
<p>Nobody challenged the subpoenas? How about Matthew & Judith the reporters and their respective employers, NYT and Time??? I don’t call that no challenge.</p>
<p>No one from the administration stonewalled, was the point. The NYT and Time were stonewalling on the administration’s behalf? Come on. Regardless, in the end, Fitzgerald got every bit of information he asked for. There was no stonewall.</p>
<p>The role of the CIA in Plamegate is gaining traction. The articles linked in this blog are worth a read. Lest you think it too far-fetched, read any account of CIA operations that attempt to subvert a government overseas…their stock in trade is phony leaks and rumors planted with local media outlets.</p>
<p><a href=“http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012138.php[/url]”>http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012138.php</a></p>
<p>There was (and of course continues to be) no stonewall and Tim Russert really told Scooter who Plame is. And there really were WMD’s and we really have an exit strategy and Brownie did a heck of a job. …</p>
<p>Grim fairy tales.</p>
<p>EXcerpt from Driver’s right wing extremist apologist link:</p>
<p>“Fifth: More important than the inaccuracies is the fact that, if the CIA truly, truly, truly had wanted Ms. Plame’s identity to be secret, it never would have permitted her spouse to write the op-ed. Did no one at Langley think that her identity could be compromised if her spouse wrote a piece discussing a foreign mission about a volatile political issue that focused on her expertise?”</p>
<p>No one not even Wilson’s brother and his wife knew that Valerie worked for the CIA. Wilson was a national figure who had spoken on the subject in other formats. This is faulty logic and oh, by the way Wilson was not indicted. HE is not on trial nor is the CIA which I think historically has been filled with Republicans.</p>
<p>
Better check that. Who says?</p>
<p>
Well–here are four who claim to have known: NYT reporter Hugh Sidey, New Republic editor Marty Peretz, ABC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, and former NYT reporter Clifford May. Right wing extremist apologists all? Well, ok, that’s easier than mounting a serious counter.<a href=“http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/11/reporters_who_k.html[/url]”>http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/11/reporters_who_k.html</a></p>
<p>Driver I’m not going to mount a serious counter because you are the one countering the whole Libby indictment with nonsense about the CIA. It’s not based in one whit of fact - it’s just speculation aimed at discrediting Wilson - that’s why Libby was indicted- for lying about Wilson’s wife. It’s NOT RELEVANT. I haven’t seen you give one ounce of thought in considering that the charges against Libby might be true or that the Bush administration might have manipulated their evidence for WMD. It is your party that is under attack here for problems they created. It’s not something Dems created. So the onus is on you to deal with the facts at hand, not bring up extraneous scenarios that fog up the issue. The CIA is NOT on trial nor is Wilson. Libby is. And they lied about it to the American people. He and Karl Rove told us all that they weren’t involved. What’s your defense to that? Doesn’t that bother you in the least? Doesn’t that bother any of you who voted for Bush? Bush promised to restore honor and integrity to the White house and not just based on the rule of the law.</p>
<p>Regarding the CIA, I have no statistics - I just remember seeing a group of them talk on Nightline or some other program and I remember them saying they were Republicans.</p>
<p>So…either the President of the United States, on his watch, allowed a secret cabal to manipulate intelligence in such way, without his knowledge or direction, so as to “force” him into a war that he otherwise might not have wanted, or, alternatively, he and his staff manipulated the intelligence they received in order to make the case for war that could not have been made otherwise.</p>
<p>I’ll take deception over gross incompetence in matters aimed at protecting my family any day. I just wish they were better at it.</p>
<p>Are you serious Mini about wishing they were better at it? You think it’s inevitable that we’ll always have administrations who lie and manipulate, because your sarcasm or flipness (sp?) seems to imply so.</p>
<p>“You think it’s inevitable that we’ll always have administrations who lie and manipulate, because your sarcasm or flipness (sp?) seems to imply so.”</p>
<p>The last “open” Democratic Administration killed a million people (roughly four times the very highest estimate of those killed by Saddam Hussein in twenty years), and including half a million kids, and the war criminal masquerading as Secretary of State goes on national tv, when asked about it, and says, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.”</p>
<p>I would MUCH prefer they were secret about their crimes, and had some sense of shame, rather than that it be regarded as business as usual. </p>
<p>No Iraqi with a dead son or daughter, sister or brother, niece or nephew, is going to fight for a U.S. agenda, however well-meaning. So we get to choose - the Sunnis who hate our guts and “breed” insurgents, or the Shi’ites who hate our guts and will support Iran. This is the current lie we are being protected from, and it has nothing to do with CIA or Rove/Libby/Cheney/Bush fabrications. </p>
<p>Do I think it is inevitable? NOTHING is inevitable, though our one-party system makes things a bit more difficult.</p>
<p>Rove, Libby, and Cheney have everything to do with the current lie you speak of. Why do you think they manipulated evidence to go to war? - maybe because of dissent like yours. They aren’t all bad apples Mini.</p>
<p>Mini:
“The last … Democratic Administration killed a million people (roughly four times the very highest estimate of those killed by Saddam Hussein in twenty years), and including half a million kids…”</p>
<p>Remarkable. The way you’d have it, it was that bestial, war-mongering Democratic Administration that killed all those people, despite the efforts of all the peace-loving Republicans to stop them from imposing the sanctions.</p>
<p>As I recall, both House and Senate, Democrat and Republican, voted overwhelmingly to impose the sanctions. And when Bush ran for President in 2000, he wanted to make the sanctions tougher:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2000/msg01051.html[/url]”>http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2000/msg01051.html</a></p>
<p>After he took office, Bush and his administration kept the sanctions going. And children died at the same (or faster) rate in Iraq.</p>
<p>You can make a strong case that the sanctions against Iraq did more harm than good, and I’d agree. You can also make a strong case that nothing justified the deaths of all those Iraqis. But don’t try to hang it all on a Democratic administration, and pretend that the Republicans had nothing to do with it.</p>
<p>“As I recall, both House and Senate, Democrat and Republican, voted overwhelmingly to impose the sanctions. And when Bush ran for President in 2000, he wanted to make the sanctions tougher”</p>
<p>As I wrote, this is what you get in a one-party system. But, no, Republicans did NOT vote to bomb the water treatment plants and other civilian infrastructure (never considered part of the sanctions), and, no, the Republicans did not interpret sanctions to mean simple antibiotics and other treatments for dysentery, etc. They probably would have, if asked, but they were never asked. </p>
<p>And, no, the death rate declined radically after “Oil for Food” (as sad as that is) - in fact “Oil for Food” was enacted after international outrage at the killing of half a million children and other civilians in an attempt to destabilize the government. And, no, Republicans did not vote for the bombings of 1998, the sanctions having failed to destablize the Iraqi government.</p>
<p>No pretending is necessary in a one-party state. But “bestial, war-mongering Democratic Administration?” I’d say for an Administration that killed more children than died in Rwanda, and ten to 15 times as many children as died at the hands of Saddam Hussein, I’d say that’s a reasonably fair characterization. </p>
<p>“Rove, Libby, and Cheney have everything to do with the current lie you speak of.”</p>
<p>It’s the same lie that is being fed to us by John Kerry and Hilary Clinton who would deceive us into believing that things would be better if we sent in MORE troops, rather than bringing home those already being hung out to dry.</p>